Captured Saddam henchman could face war crimes charges

A top enforcer in Saddam Hussein’s regime may face war crimes charges after being captured and handed over to Allied forces in Iraq, officials said today.

Muhammad Hamza al-Zubaydi was known as Saddam’s “Shiite Thug” for his role in the crushing of the 1991 Shiite Muslim uprising.

US officials said he is one of nine Iraqis – including Saddam – sought for trial on charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity.

A nurse by training and a former regional commander and member of Iraq’s ruling Revolutionary Command Council, al-Zubaydi was number 18 on the US list of the 55 most wanted regime figures.

Iraqi opposition groups have accused him of the 1999 assassination of a top Shiite cleric.

“This is very significant, he is one of the most hated men in the former regime,” said Haider Ahmad, a London-based spokesman for the anti-Saddam Iraqi National Congress (INC).

Al-Zubaydi had been an associate of Saddam since the early 1960s and had been retired from a public role in the leadership for about two years.

Central Command gave no further details about his arrest. The INC said its forces arrested al-Zubaydi in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, and had turned him over to US forces.

Ahmad said local people tipped them off about where al-Zubaydi was hiding with his son, and that the two were caught together.

“He was hiding in an abandoned, derelict area, not a built-up area,” he said.

Including yesterday’s capture, eight of the 55 most wanted are now in custody, though none of them is from the very top of the list.

A ninth figure, Ali Hassan al-Majid – a top adviser to Saddam and known as “Chemical Ali” for his use of poison gas against Iraq’s Kurdish minority – is believed to have been killed in an air strike in Basra.

Al-Zubaydi, a former prime minister and deputy prime minister, was one of the key figures in suppressing the uprising of Iraq’s Shiite majority that followed Iraq’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War.

Tens of thousands of people died.

Al-Zubaydi was considered one of the most brutal members of Saddam’s regime and was listed in a US State Department report entitled Iraq: Crimes against Humanity, Leaders as Executioners.

He was once featured in an Iraqi video-tape brutalising Shiite dissidents as a display of authority and an encouragement to soldiers to be tough.

A Shiite himself, al-Zubaydi also presided over the destruction of the southern marshes in the 1990s, an action aimed against Shiite “Marsh Arabs” living there.

The marshes – about 3,200sq miles – had provided the necessities of life for tens of thousands of Arab marsh dwellers for at least 1,000 years.

They were destroyed through a large scale water diversion project aimed at removing the ability of insurgents to hide there.

Al-Zubaydi served as prime minister from 1991 to 1993 as deputy prime minister from 1994 and as commander of Central Euphrates Region from 1998 to 2000.

He was dismissed in 2001 as deputy prime minister and from the Baath Party Regional Command.

Iraqi opposition groups have accused him of assassinating Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr and his two sons in the holy city of Najaf in 1999.

Al-Zubaydi himself escaped several assassination attempts in the years following 1991.

He is the queen of spades in the deck of Saddam’s henchmen given out to US forces. Saddam tops the list and was designated the ace of spades.

It was the second time in as many days the INC was credited with detaining most wanted figures.

On Sunday, the INC said Saddam’s son-in-law, Jamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan al-Tikriti, and one of Saddam’s bodyguards, came out of hiding in Syria and surrendered to their group.

Iraq’s minister of higher education and scientific research, Abd al-Khaliq Abd al-Gafar, was apprehended on Saturday.

Other top arrests by coalition forces include Watban and Barzan Ibrahim Hasan al-Tikriti, two of Saddam’s three half brothers; Hikmat Mizban Ibrahim al-Azzawi, the finance minister and deputy prime minister; science adviser Lt Gen. Amer al-Saadi and Samir Abd al-Aziz al-Najim, a senior figure in Saddam’s Baath Party.